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Where Does Infertility Fit Into My Life?

I look back at my life and can see its phases. Infancy through high school blur together, a flurry of changes coupled with the belief the world revolved around me. College offered a breath of fresh air through its choices, a chance to choose my friends, classes I was interested in, parties to attend and who to date. After college, I steamrolled into the corporate world, I believed in myself and did not have anything to lose. With that determination I went to business school and then back into the corporate world still full of drive.

Then when I wasn’t looking I met my match and entered the next phase. He was a hard worker who had pushed himself for the sake of getting to the next step. A “work hard, play hard” guy who pulled all-nighters while only coming home so we could go for a run together. We both knew how to move ahead, and when we met, we quickly realized our next step was to be together. Within a year and a half of meeting, we were married and gave little debate to having children. We expected to have children; they would be an additional layer to our lives. A challenge we were excited about.

And then I entered the phase I named the “Baby March” (March of the Penguins had come out recently, and the name stuck). One step in front of the other, with trips, falls and collapses throughout. Walking through quicksand, while everyone else has wings. I lived my life in two-week increments, and each day I wanted to hurry to the next so I could either find out if I was pregnant or get to the day when I could start trying to get pregnant.

The Baby March gave me a period in my life when I didn’t know what was next. It didn’t fit with my plans, it wasn’t solved through hard work; it was ugly and not an easy topic of conversation. I knew it was a phase; somehow I was going to have children, but I wouldn’t let myself think that far ahead.

When I look back at the Baby March, I have sympathy for myself, I feel bad that I had to go through that time. But I can also draw so much from my march, and I can apply my march to other’s marches. We are all marching, for different reasons and at different speeds. Some are being dragged along, while others are the grand masters of a parade. But what I realize is it can always change, my parade ended with the start of the Baby March, but afterwards I was able to get back in and this time I joined the band.